Sunday Gazette-Mail from Charleston, West Virginia • Page 8

Facilities Are Inherently Unequal 9 Supreme Court, May 17, 1954 Integration's 10 Thunderous Years U.S. Supreme Court, 1954 Editor's Hale: Exactly 10 yeors ogo-on May )7, 7954-rne Supreme Court said Linda Brown could go to a while school, and the dawn of a new era was proclaimed. Tne first decade of school integration hoi brought violent, massive resistance, and the beginnings of fundamental changes. But in the Deep South only one Negro in a hundred goes (o a while school. A foot of (he South--and the nalion-since the historic court ruling.

By Relmnn Morin Press Writer On a spring day in 1951, a Negro clergyman in Topeka, went to school with his 9-year-old daughter. Linda Brown attended Monroe Elementary, an all-Negro school, 20 blocks from her home. She rode the school bus most of the way. But on that day, the Rev. Oliver Brown did not take his daughter to Monroe.

Holding Linda's hand, he led her to an all-white school, Sumner Elementary. It was four blocks away. They walked. In the building, Mr. Brown attempted to enroll Linda.

The request was denied. He told her to wait in the hallway. Then he took his request to the principal of the school. Again, it was denied. This brief sequence was soon to go into American legal and social history as part of the monumental decision by the U.S.

Supreme Court in the case of "Brown vs. Board of Education." On May 17, 1954--just 10 years ago-the court ruled that segregation in the schools is unconstitutional. In 17 states, segregation was mandatory. Kansas, New Mexico, Arizona and Wyoming had laws that permitted, but did not require, segregated schools. (Wyoming never exercised the laws.) AH this, of course, was beyond the understanding of a 9-year-old girl.

Nor did Linda Brown understand why her father had taken her, that day, to the school for white children. Today she says, "My father felt strongly for the whole Negro race. And he was upset because I had to go so far to school. He felt that we paid taxes the same as anyone else and there was no reason for this inconvenience." Linda Brown's father could have told her that much more than "inconverii- to Negroes was involved in his action. UPHEAVAL Segregated public schools had been a fact of American life for a century before Linda Brown's father and other Negro parents challenged it in 1951.

It began in the North, in Boston In 1849 snd lasted there until 1855. In San Fran- in the early 1900's, oriental children for a time were assigned to a separate school. The Supreme Court, in Us ruling ot May 17, 1954, said, "It is apparent that such segregation has long been a nationwide problem, not merely one of sectional concern." The scene in Sumner Elementary was one Negro's protest about a school. But what followed, as a result of the court's decision, was a social upheaval involving much more than the public schools. From this was to come the great drive for full equality for the Negro- voting rights, job opportunities, housing, public accommodations, the right to enter a public park, the right to read a book in a public library.

Every corner of America would feel it. Who could have forcssen what lay ahead? Who envisioned federal troops again marching into Southern cities, police battling demonstrators in Northern cities, bloodshed and rioting, the multiplicity of lawsuits, "Impeach Enrl Warren" signs, the Black Muslims, shuttered schools, acts of courage and acts of cowardice? A painful decade was beginning. DEPRIVATION Five Negro parents in Topeka brought the lawsuits against the board of education. Similar actions had been initiated in South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia. Eventually, they all came to the Supreme Court and were considered together as "Brown vs.

Board of Education. "These cases are premised on different facts and different local conditions," the court said, "but a common legal question justifies their consideration together in this consolidated opinion." The segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other 'tangible' factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal education opportunity? We believe that it does." And the heart of the conclude that in the field of public education, the doctrine of separate-but- equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." The decision was unanimous. It was read by Chief Justice Earl Warren of California. The associate justices were Hugo L.

Black of Alabama; Harold H. Burton of Massachusetts; Tom C. Clark of Texas; William 0. Douglas of Minnesota; Felix Frankfurter, born in Vienna with a New York and Massachusetts background; Robert H. Jackson of New York; Sherman Minton of Indiana, Stanley F.

Reed of Kentucky. INFERIORITY? Legal precedent collided with a new concept of public education--and people --In the hearings on "Brown vs. Board of Education." In 1896, the Supreme Court had handed down another historic decision pertaining to iegregation, "Plessy vi. Ferguson." did not involve It concerned a itate law requiring that white and Negro passengers on railways be carried separate cars. Tht court refused to Jeclare the law unconstitutional.

Tfcui, far years, "separate-but- remained clothed in legality, ROBERT JACKSON HAROLD BURTON SHERMAN MINTON John W. Davis, Democratic nominee tor president in 1924, was one of the leading advocates for the South in the 1954 hearings. He cited "Plessy" and other precedents, one as late as 1927. Based on these, he argued that segregation in the public schools had been "many times decided to be within the constitutional power of the states to settle without intervention of the federal courts under the federal Constitution." The court also referred to "Plessy." But it said: "We cannot turn the clock back to 1896. We must consider public education in the light its present place in American life throughout the nation." It emphasized that education is vastly more important today than it was in 1896.

"In these days," it said, "it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education." Then came the new concept. The Topeka parents had not contended that the Negro schools were inferior to the white schools. They acknowledged that the facilities for their children were, in tangible aspects, equal to those provided for white children. The question was: Did segregation, per se, create difficulties for the Negro child and put him at a disadvantage in acquiring an education? In "American Rights," Walter Gcllhorn Belts, professor of law at Columbia University, wrote: vs. Board of Education' brought before the court for the very first time in a clear and unmistakable form the question of whether isolation in education on racial grounds was in itself objectionable The high court cited the language in a Kansas case: "A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to leam.

Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to retard the educational and mental development of Negro children and to deprive them of some of the bene- fits they would receive in a racially integrated system." Thus after 58 years of legally segregated schools, the court overturned "Plessy" and declared "Brown" the law of the land. MILESTONE Words of shock, jubilance, anger, satisfaction, bewilderment and warning studded the nation's newspapers in the wake of the Supreme Court decision. To the Negro and his white sympathizers, it seemed to herald the dawn of a bright new day. To many Southern whites, it appeared as the work of a politically-motivated court, based on unproven sociological premises rather than the law. The potential effect on the North, now so apparent, could scarcely be imagined 10 years ago.

But the magnitude of the decision and its place in the history of race relations in the United States was apparent to everyone. The Voice of America poured out the story to the world, hour after hour, in 34 languages. It zeroed in especially on Communist countries. Toward Red China alone, it beamed the news in the principal languages, Mandarin and Cantonese, and in several widely-spoken dialects. Editorial comment filled columns in American is acceptance of a process that has been going on a long Courier-Journal.

"This milestone in our history means that we will struggle successfully toward our own Courant. "Acceptance of the decision does not mean that we are stopped from taking such honorable and legal steps as may be indicated to avoid difficulties it presents to both races" Birmingham Post-Herald. "This is a time for calm and unhysteri- cal appraisal of the Times-Dispatch. DISSENTERS Some of the later developments were clearly foreshadowed in the immediate reaction. "The South will not abide by nor obey this legislative decision by a political court," said Sen.

James Eastland of Mississippi. Violence, foot-dragging, and resistance were soon to come. The National Association for the Advancement oi Colored People (NAACP) announced that it would now broaden its objectives. Its new goals, officers said, would be to eliminate discrimination in housing and jobs. These arc two main friction points in the North today.

Thurgood Marshall, Negro lawyer and one of the attorneys who argued the plaintiffs' case before the Supreme Court, looked into the future. The New York Times asked him how long he thought it would be before segregated schools would be eliminated. He replied it might be "up to five years." The Times reported, further, that Marshall predicted that by 1963 --100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclama- Icon segregation in all its forms would be gone from America. The high optimism of May 17, 1951, has not yet been fulfilled. The Negro is still frustrated.

Less than two months after the Supreme Court outlawed school segregation, the NAACP chairman in Sulphur Springs, petitioned the school board to admit Negroes. On July 18, 1954, two shotgun blasts and seven pistol slugs were fired into his empty home. So quickly did racial violence begin. VIOLENCE The publication, Southern School News, today lists 65 major incidents of violence or protests related to the schools in the last 10 years. It said they occurred in every school year except the 1961-62 term.

As the years passed, many names and many mforgettable scenes were engraved in the record of the decade. Autherine Lucy, hidden on the floor of a state highway patrol car, fleeing a mob at the University of Alabama Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas ringing a Little Rock high school with National Guardsmen James Meredith and the wrecked cars and eye-stinging tear gas at the University of Mississippi Gov. George Wallace standing in the doorway at the University of Alabama to block the enrollment of two Negro students, Vivian Malone and James Hood Bombed out schools and burned out schools Tanks rolling into action in Oliver Springs, Term An all-white jury convicting seven persons of obstructing justice in the integration of a high school in Clinton, Term Police clubbing white demonstrators near a high school in Birmingham, Ala In St. Louis, Baltimore and Wilmington, integration was accomplished successfully although the proportion of Negroes ranged between 30 and 40 per cent of the total school enrollment.

Louisville, Dallas, and Atlanta, were examples of intelligent planning to prepare their residents for desegregation. SUBTERFUGE Violence was not the only form of resistance. Subtler methods were sought by lawyers. "Pupil placement" was designed to give legal sanction to assigning Negro and white students to different schools. The term, "interposition," became familiar.

This is the contention that the state is a partner of the federal government and has the right to "interpose" when it considers Washington has abrogated power illegally. Negro lawyers, bringing suits on behalf of Negro parents, risked charges of or maintaining lawsuits. Some schools were closed. Private schools wert encouraged to tpta and THE NAME WAS BROWN, THE CAUSE WAS INTEGRATION Linda Brown Stands in Front of Topeka, School Where Four Fights Started did. Compulsory attendance was amended or repealed.

Southern School News reported that, during the decade, "Southern legislators adopted almost 450 laws and resolutions dealing with desegregation most of them designed to delay or limit the admission of Negroes to school with whites." The white Southerner felt that he had every right to resist. Apart from the legal considerations, he advanced reasons why he does not want his children to have to go to school with Negro children, reasons based on moral and educational grounds. FRUSTRATION The frustration of the Negro today, 10 years after the precedent-setting Supreme Court decision, can be explained in part by a statistic- Less than 10 per cent of the Negro children of elementary and high school age are attending schools with white students in the Southern and border states. The precise figure is given as 9.3 per cent. It was announced by Southern School News in a special edition marking the 10th anniversary of the court's ruling.

The publication regularly compiles figures on desegregation in the 17 Southern and border states and the District of Columbia. In the whole region, the publication says, 315,481 Negro students out of a total of 3,403,688 are in school with whites. The great majority of these 231,731 --are in the Border states, the paper says. The --are in the Southern states. This represents 1.18 per cent of the total in these states.

Alabama and South Carolina had no desegregation until 1963. Mississippi still has no desegregated schools. However, three school districts in the state are under court orders to desegregate next fall. The decade has not diminised the determination of many white Southerners not to accept integration. Macon County, Alabama, is one striking example.

White students boycotted two schools when they were desegregated last fall. They are attending private schools in the county now. Here are excerpts from a letter from one parent: "We believe, too, that all schools should be equal. We know that Macon County has provided such schools. Indeed, the colored schools are in many ways superior, for most of them are newer and better equipped.

The teachers are as well educated. "Therefore, the purpose of the suit was not for better education but for forced integration. Being forced to do something we felt was detrimental to the children of both races was the principle reason we made this very heartbreaking decision." The writer, a former teacher, says she was "drafted" to serve in the private school. "My day begins at 5 a. m.

and ends at 11 p. she wrote. DISOBEDIENCE "But there come occasions, generally rare, when (a man) considers certain laws to be so unjust as to render obedience to them a dishonor. He then openly and civilly breaks them and quietly suffers the penalty of their breach." This is nonviolent civil disobedience. The words were written by Mahatma Gandhi who used it to win independence for India.

And this is what the United States has been seeing on a widening scale for nearly 10 years Negro civil disobedience, demonstrations in the streets protesting laws, or conditions, they consider unjust. Soon after the Supreme Court held for them on segregation in the schools, Negro leaders, encouraged'by the decir sion, turned their attention to other objectives. They set out to eliminate barriers, visible in the South, invisible in the North, to full equality. They sought the right to be served in any hotel, motel, restaurant or 1 a counter. They said they should be allowed to sit anywhere in a public bus, not ordered to the rear.

They demonstrated for equal job opportunities and against discrimination in housing. In 1955 and 'SB, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), headed by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, IN OUR STATE West Virginia's progress on the integration front is outlined in a story on today's education page. Read it on page 1GA.

boycotted segregated buses in Montgomery, after nearly a year of tumult and court actions against him and other Negroes, they won. "Jim Crow" the bus. Next, a whole new set of "ins" entered the American lexicon, "sit-ins," "lie-ins," "pray-ins," and most recently the abortive "stall-in," designed to block traffic going to the New York World's Fair. These maneuvers were pioneered by the Committee On Racial Equality (Core). Parallel with action on these fronts came the effort in another vital field -voter registration.

Another Negro organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was active in this. CATALYST In the tumultuous record of years, Birmingham, stands out as the great catalyst. In the spring of 1963, Negroes poured into the streets in massive demonstrations. They demanded, among things, the desegregation of some facilities in downtown department stores and the formation of a biracial committee to handle racial problems. These demonstrations, paralyzing traffic and crippling business, violated a city ordinance against parading without a permit.

So many Negroes were arrested that the jails couldn't hold them all. Emergency detention areas had to be set up. Why did the Birmingham eruption have such an impact? Probably because of its size and duration, the photographs of police dogs and fire hoses used against 1he demonstrators, and because the Negroes achieved some degree of success. In any case, soon after Birmingham this form of protest spread. The Department of Justice counted 2,062 demonstrations in 315 cities in 40 states between mid-May and the end of 1963.

It said "discrimination in public accommodations was the reason for 1,235 or nearly two-thirds of the total." Racial strife came to Cleveland over de facto school segregation. On April 7, the Rev. Bruce W. Klunder, 26, a white demonstrator, was crushed to death by a bulldozer at a school construction site. In Los Angeles, a serious problem has arisen over Negro charges of "police brutality." Between April 17-26 this year, policemen were attacked by crowds in five instances.

Three of them took place in a section that Negroes call the "Black Ghetto." All the incidents involved Negroes. James Farmer, national director of Core, said "police do not respect the Negro's rights as a citizen, so how can Negroes respect police?" The Associated Press recently interviewed nearly 70 civil rights leaders, Negro and white, on the immediate outlook for solution of racial problems. "It's going to be a long, hot summer," one replied. Gandhi advocated nonviolent i i disobedience. Whether civil disobedience in race relations will remain nonviolent appears to be in question.

PROGRESS Recently, Burke Marshall, assistant attorney-general for civil rights, gestured toward a large map on the wall of his office in Washington. 17, 1964 The map is studded with vari-colored pins and small flags. Each represents some instance of desegregation, or action toward it, in the 17 Southern and border states. "Almost all that would have been unthinkable a couple years ago," Marshall said. From one point of view, a great deal has been accomplished in finding to the complex, many-sided racial problem since 1954, the year of the Supreme Court decision on the schools.

But from another, progress has been grindingly slow. As Marshall put it: "I don't want to overemphasize. In terms of what they (the Negroes) want and what they're entitled to, it's really just a beginning." The racial picture in the United States today is mottled. It is a montage of sunlight and shadow. HOPE Possibly hopeful signs appear in these areas: whites than ever before, North and South, have been made aware of tho Negro protest and the bases for it.

More Americans, pcrforace, are seeking solutions. degree of communication between the races is being restored in the South. Birmingham, is an object example. There, a biracial community affairs committee has been organized. It deals, not only with race relations, but with the general administrative problems of the city.

Thus, it aims to bring Negroes into the general business of the community. -Many Negroes have succeeded in business, the professions and the arts, forming a Negro middle class. Mrs. Cora Walker, a Negro lawyer in New York, long has been urging Negroes to use their own resources to help their own people. In a recent speech, she said: "What do you find our people doing? Are they striving to make their communities livable? Are they bent on using their own resources to create jobs and other opportunities for their youth? "Or are they looking to, and begging others, for these things.

We even find the Negro telling his children that they can't possibly learn anything in school unless they sit next to a white child. We find the Negro insisting that someone else develop the ideas, construct the families, supply the materials, and then look to him to give him a job. "We have to understand that many of our problems are self-inflicted. And that any meaningful progress cannot ba handed to us, but must come from us." These are possible bright spots in the picture. TROUBLE On the other hand, two possibly ominous signs appear.

In interviewing the large groups of civil rights leaders last month, the Associated Press asked if they believa "extremists" are gaining control of the Negro organizations? A majority replied that they would use different words, "militant" or "more aggressive." Many said the younger Negroes are increasingly impatient and consider the older, established leaders too conservative. What about the "white back-lash?" There has been evidence of resentment in the North against some of the Negro demonstrations, fear of the loss of jobs, and opposition to having their children bused long distances to attend schools now predominantly Negro. Some observers attribute the rolled up by Alabama's Gov. Wallace In the Wisconsin and Indiana primary elections to this feeling. In California, a major court fight is developing over the Rumford Housing Act.

It was passed last year, designed to eliminate racial discrimination in housing. In November, Califomians will vote on an amendment to repeal the act. Reputable polls indicate that as of now the repeal initiative would win. Most observers agree that the next developments in the course of the struggle over civil rights will turn largely on the fate of the civil rights bib, now in the Senate--what kind of a bill comes out and when. This could be the biggest step in these thunderous years,.